When Facebook approached famed Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry to design their new headquarters in Menlo Park, California, they asked for a simple building without a heavy design. And while the building might look pretty conventional from down below, 70-feet up on the roof is something light on the environment and the spirits: a 9-acre garden.

The building, called MPK 20, is topped by a parkland with verdant green fields of grass, over 400 trees, and a lot of trails. “It’s a half mile loop,”says Lori Goler, head of human resources and recruiting. “It gives space to think.”

A minimalist house with a curved exterior that provides privacy, security, natural light and air circulation, and plenty of space for children to play.

Osaka-based architect Naoko Horibe was given a tall order when she set out to design this residence in Naruto-Shi, Tokushima, Japan. First, the property is located in an area that tends to flood during heavy rains. Second, the clients wanted their new home to provide security and privacy, while at the same time having enough space for their children. And last, but not least, they asked for the house to have good natural light and air circulation throughout.

To work around the potential flooding situation, the foundation and floor were built fairly high. The house itself is designed such that the rooms are built around a central courtyard. The rooms loop together and create a path for the kids to run around.

The courtyard helps bring light into the interior, helping to achieve one of the clients’ requests. It also helps with air circulation.

This unique contemporary house by Wallflower Architecture + Design takes the form of a raised reinforced concrete tube whose open ends are oriented in a north-south direction, with the prevailing breezes.

All rooms have walls that side either east or west, and front north and south. The tubular structure resists east west heat gain thanks to the the reinforced concrete, but encourages passive cooling through the open north south axis, whose facades are treated with timber screens that act as privacy filters for the bedrooms and the first layer of solar heat reduction. The timber fins can also be angled to catch a breeze or increase privacy when needed. Other design considerations included the context and proximity of neighboring homes, the daily sun path and the prevailing winds.

Head of Australia's delegation says he was "surprised" and "very disappointed" after unexpected challenge (Plan to create massive Antarctic ocean sanctuaries blocked by surprise challenge from Russia and Ukraine http://t.co/69ow4Co5Tg...

"To get to the bottom of what qualifies as 'badly designed,' we picked the brains of several urban planners to highlight the flaws of some of the world's biggest cities. In the end, that birthed a list of nine cities that, for various reasons, are gigantic messes in some way or another."

Reading about these different cities makes me cringe. Either the rich is priority, politicians are priority, or traffic is insane to the point going to the grocery store for milk will cost you two hours in traffic.

Reflection of development. Sometimes commercialization in less developed or developing countries causes issues due to lack of finances when trying to industrialize the region. This poses problems such as the ones described in the article.

This article is mainly about how bad some of the worlds urban areas are. The article shows and explains why they are bad and also why they were even designed in the way that they were. One example is Brasilia, which, was designed to have a population of 500,000, instead it has a population of about 3 million.

This article ties into unit 6 by showing some of the worst urban areas throughout the world. And also why they were even designed to be a CBD.

The 1000-square-foot floating pod-shaped home measures 12 meters in diameter and 4 meters tall. Its curved body is constructed from recycled glued laminated timber and a recycled aluminum hull. The rounded wooden roof is topped by a 60-square-meter photovoltaic array capable of generating 4 kWp. Four skylights flank both sides of the photovoltaic array. Large windows and balconies wrap around the unit to allow users to enjoy views of the water.

New York Daily News 12 hurt in NYC building explosion, fire USA TODAY An explosion and fire in a building in New York City's Chinatown injured 12 people, including four firefighters, the Associated Press reported Thursday afternoon.

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